The importance of how to manage wildfire risk has been brought to the forefront once again, in the United States and around the world, having resulted in thousands of homes destroyed and many lives lost with wildfires, leaving communities and policy makers with the question as to how to manage wildfire risk. Current approaches to managing wildfires focus on fire suppression and managing fuel build-up in wildlands. However, reliance on these strategies alone has clearly proven inadequate. In their research, Dr. Hussam Mahmoud and Akshat Chulahwat evaluated wildfire risk for four different communities across the USA for the duration of May to September to communicate a different perspective of risk assessment. They show, for the first time, that community risk is closely related to wind speed and direction, pattern of surrounding wildland vegetation, and buildings layout. The importance of these findings lies in the need for exploring unique viable solutions to reduce risk for every community independently as opposed to embracing a generalized approach as is currently the case.  Read More